Balance empathy and authority

Effective communication skills are essential to achieve effective leadership results. Sending mixed signals creates confusion and often creates paralysis within the organization. Remember, words make up 10 percent of our in-person communication. Thus, it is important to ensure our voice and body language are in concert with the words we choose and that all three are appropriate to the situation at hand.

When it comes to facilitating collaborative teams and building high trust work environments, high-status behaviors can undermine your efforts. After all, if you act like “the boss who has all the answers,” why would anyone else need — or dare — to contribute?

INSIGHTS: Our unconscious base instinct to determine “friend or foe” reads the non-verbal signals we send to determine if we should cooperate. If the answer is yes, then to what degree? And ultimately to give our whole-hearted commitment or just an agreement at this moment in time?